Me and You and Everyone We Know
By: Lindsay Bianchi | Category: On DVD | 11/13/05 | 08:05 AM
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Grade: A | Genre: Independent
Summary: Definitely not for the multiplex crowd, Me and You... will delight those who look for something a little different and something that will make them think as well.
Miranda July not only wrote and directed this oddly moving film but stars as the wannabe performance artist at its core. Centered on a handful of everyday people, their friends and acquaintances, Me and You and Everyone We Know looks at the nature of innocence in our contemporary society. A divorced shoe salesman, Richard (John Hawkes) encounters Christine (July) as he struggles to raise his two young sons. Unlike anyone he has ever encountered, Christine's penchant for turning every moment and every experience of her life into an artistic statement first charms and then repels Richard. |
Circumventing their story is the lonely existence of Richard's fellow employee, Andrew (Brad Henke) and two teenage girls he becomes dangerously infatuated with, Heather (Natasha Slayton) and Rebecca (Najarra Townsend). Meanwhile Richard's sons, Peter (Miles Thompson) and Robby (Brandon Ratcliff) spend their time exploring online chat rooms out of sheer boredom. In addition, Robby and Peter meet Sylvie (Carlie Westerman), a very forward thinking little girl whose hobby is filling up her hope chest with household necessities.
How all these characters converge and affect each other is an often hilarious and touching portrait of people in search of those basic things that make being human worthwhile; love, companionship, understanding and acceptance.
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| Me and You and Everyone We Know |
| Starring: Miranda July, John Hawkes, Miles Thompson, Brad Henke & Brandon Ratcliff |
| Director: Miranda July |
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| View the Trailer (Quicktime) |
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Miranda July's directorial debut is a disarming vision of contemporary society as a group of lost lambs that bump into one another and ultimately change each other's paths. July herself is perfect as the childlike Christine, a woman whose ability to see the unique in the everyday is matched only by her undaunted courage at expressing herself artistically.
In a film with its share of memorable characters, Brandon Ratcliff stands out as the precocious little boy, Robby. Oftentimes, a child actor will deliver a wooden performance simply because of their inexperience, but Mr. Ratcliff has the audience in the palm of his hands from the first moment he appears on screen. He is the picture of innocence; as yet free from the constraints that growing up will eventually erode.
Nancy (Tracy Wright), the curator of the art gallery where Christine attempts to show her stuff, is the jaded opposite of little Robby. She is cynical and alone in her world of aesthetic values. Through the circumstances that July's perceptive script dictates, Nancy answers for herself and for the audience her own questions about love and loneliness.
So too for the game which Andrew plays with young nubiles, Rebecca and Heather. His messages to them from his living room window grow more and more risque until he, himself is forced to act upon them. It is another revealing moment that illustrates both the fear and the longing shared by these everyday people.
Me and You and Everyone We Know has received multiple awards from film festivals across this nation and abroad, including the Camera d'Or at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. It reinforces the assumption that independent film can reach audiences in profound ways that Hollywood rarely ever does these days. Here is a movie that will make you laugh out loud and surprise you with its insights.
Long after you have seen it, images will stick in your mind. A framed picture in a tree. A little girl breathing in the smell of a new shower curtain. A penny tapping on a metal pole. And of course the typed image, ))<>(( Forever.
The only other film that comes close to resembling July's remarkable debut is another debut from the now legendary Todd Solondz, Fear, Anxiety and Depression. Like July, Solontz wrote, directed and starred in this underrated film about a struggling playwright in New York. There's even a demented performance artist in it, although her name is Junk, if that gives you any indication as to its quirkiness. Fans of Solondz well know what that can mean. In Miranda July, the world may just have a female version of Todd.
She is certainly quirky and seems to have the same fearlessness in making movies that Mr. Solondz has.
Definitely not for the multiplex crowd, Me and You... will delight those who look for something a little different and something that will make them think as well.
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